Yesterday, of course, was the 50th anniversary of the inception of NASA, and it’s not surprising the anniversary was marked in Florida. In fact, governor Charlie Crist issued a statement for the occasion, calling it “NASA Day in Florida” and even taking time to congratulate Congress for passing HR 6063, the NASA authorization bill.
It wasn’t clear from the headline of the statement, though, exactly what Crist was celebrating: “STATEMENT BY GOVERNOR CRIST REGARDING THE 50TH ANNIVERSARY OF FLORIDA’S FIRST SPACE LAUNCH”. Excluding suborbital launches and failed attempts, “Florida’s first space launch” took place 50 years and 8 months earlier, with the launch of Explorer 1 on the night of January 31, 1958.
I was disappointed that most of the local news outlets had no mention of NASA’s 50th anniversary. I feel that NASA’s public relations and the advocate groups drop the ball on this opportunity. Of course it could be that the bailout bill, presidential election, Wall Street, plus Cubs and Sox making the playoffs (I’m in Chicago) took all the spotlight.
How have you written all this about NASA and the governments messy funding issue but failed to mention SpaceX successful launch of its rocket lest sunday?? SpaceX will be the saving grace of NASA and will put NASA back in the “exploration” business and not the LEO business.
Having spacex doing the launch work for the private industry and nasa will allow nasa to afford to go to the moon and beyond.